Adopt Startup Mindset to Grow Your Business (and How eBay VP of Global Payments Got It Right)

Small business owners don’t always sail smoothly. Off and on, they find themselves in troubled waters. Recently, COVID-19 affected most small businesses, making it hard for them to stay afloat. If you want to survive and grow your small business, you need to adopt a startup mindset.

A startup mindset can help your business become more customer-centric, test a prototype before implementing it at a large scale, leverage existing resources, and more.

But the question is – how can you adopt a startup mindset in your small business?

Ramon Ray recently interviewed Alyssa Cutright, eBay VP of Global Payments. They talked about how businesses can build a startup mindset.

5 Ways to Adopt Startup Mindset

Working as eBay VP of Global Payments, Alyssa Cutright observed eBay moving on new payment platforms. Earlier, the eCommerce giant used to depend solely on PayPal to process payments.

With millions of sellers on eBay, implementing new payment solutions was not an easy process.

..Embarking upon figuring out what to do with payments after the split of PayPal, it was really important for us to figure out how we introduce that startup mindset in a big company.

Here are five tips from Alyssa Cutright, which can help you grow your small business.

1- Be Ready to Embrace a Change

The path to small business success is full of unforeseen hurdles. You will never know when you will stumble upon on roadblock. And you will have to tweak your overall business strategy to survive and grow.

For example, the ongoing pandemic has forced businesses to adapt to the new normal.

That said, you need to be always ready to embrace a change.

Whenever there is a challenge, try to figure out a way, because there is always a way.

Alyssa Cutright stated,

And you know, when you see challenges that come across. You just have to continue to find a path through. I’m a big fan of, you know, gotta be the water that seeps through the path.

2- Keep Communicating with Your Customers

Customers expect a kind of intimacy or a personal touch from small businesses, don’t they?

All successful business owners know it and strive to make a strong personal bond with their customers. And needless to say, constant communication plays a vital role in building that bond.

Communication becomes critical when your business is going to implement any new tool/method to serve customers well. This is because customers’ feedback is required to improve the tool/method you want to implement.

Alyssa Cutright said that eBay kept the dialogue open and took the feedback to move to new payment solutions after the split of PayPal.

Come on this journey with us. For the ones that came from the very beginning, it was optional, we had a very open dialogue with them, to let us know what was working what they wanted to see that they were not seeing. And we really took that feedback to heart, and we adjusted our roadmap accordingly.

Here are five ways to improve communication with customers.

3- Handhold Your Customers to Adapt a Change

Adopting a new process/tool/method can be difficult for your customers. Don’t most of us resist a change?

But businesses need to rope in new processes/methods/tools all the time to serve customers well. And many a time, customers don’t find new changes welcoming at first.

So you need to handhold your customers and offer all the needed support so that they don’t struggle while walking through new things you have just implemented.

Alyssa seconded,

And we acknowledge that change can be difficult. And we’re here to support you and help you through that process.

4- Discuss Ideas with Your Team

Whether you’re going to implement new processes, solutions, or ideas, you should discuss them with your team. Doing so will help you get different perspectives to see the whole picture.

Also, discussing ideas with your team make your team members feel involved.

Alyssa Cutright pointed out the same,

Everyone sees a sort of different things and therefore has different possible solutions. And I think when you build a team that can debate, but with respect and vigorous debate, you get a much, much stronger product at the end of the day. And again, I think that’s something coming from that startup mindset.

5- Hire for Midset

Your employees are growth drivers for your business. So make sure that you’re taking the right people on board.  Good employees will take your business upward, and bad employees will cost you dearly.

Having employees with a growth mindset is a must if you want to grow your business.

Here is what Alyssa Cutright has to say on the topic,

You want people to be engaged and passionate in what they’re doing every day. And I think it’s about exploring what, what folks’ strengths are, where they want to go, what makes them tick.

Check the full interview below to know more about adapting to changes successfully and growing your business.

 

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